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Bird’s Nest Soup is reputed to have medicinal properties. It is certainly very expensive.
While on a cruise in the Andaman sea off the coast of Thailand near Phuket, we stopped at an island where we visited a cave. The cave had a very high roof on which swallows built their nests.
Men would shin up poles made from several long bamboo shafts, which had been tied together, to collect the nests. I was surprised to see that the nests that were brought down were not collections of interwoven twigs or grasses, but whitish lumps of something hard. These nest lumps were apparently dried swallow saliva.
Later we visited a restaurant to sample bird’s nest soup. We tried two varieties, each of which cost US$10 (this was in 1996). The first was warm and sweet and watery and left a slight after taste of vomit. The second was cold, glutinous, unsweetened and really didn’t taste of anything at all. It was much like eating chilled mucous, which is hardly surprising, since that is what it was.
I have often wondered who the first person was, who risked their life to collect a bird’s nest and then decided they should eat it. All I can say is that they must have been very hungry. Consuming bird’s nest soup is an experience, which I have no desire to repeat.
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